A Coding Project to Celebrate the Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year! 2017 will be the year of the rooster. The New Years celebration is an important Chinese tradition that goes back centuries, and many other countries and cultures also celebrate their own Lunar New Years at different times throughout the year; these include the Vietnamese New Year, Rosh Hashanah (a Jewish holiday), and Pohela Boishakh (Bengali New Year). Although people across China celebrate the Chinese New Year in their own ways, many families take this opportunity to come together for an annual reunion dinner. It is also common for people to clean their houses to make way for good luck for the coming year.

To celebrate this centuries-old tradition, your students can make projects about Chinese history and the many scientific and cultural contributions China has made. They’ll follow step-by-step instructions to make projects highlighting Chinese inventions. Along the way, they’ll learn how to make cool animations and they’ll learn more about Chinese history!

Once they’re done, they can use what they’ve learned and do additional research on Chinese history to add more aspects to their projects. Chinese inventors are credited with many of the things we take for granted today, such as umbrellas, calligraphy, and an early seismograph to detect earthquakes. What else will your students discover in their research? When they’re done, they can share what they’ve learned.